Is It Time To Ditch Cell Apps And Embrace The Smartphone As The Answer For Affected person Engagement?

By Greg Kefer, CMO at Lifelink Techniques

Chances are you’ll marvel if the headline query, above, makes any sense, in any respect. Aren’t smartphones and apps intertwined? Aren’t apps the way in which folks “use” cellphones? Effectively, as we speak the reply is generally “sure”, however that probably is about to vary.

Folks actually use and depend on, apps however that doesn’t imply the cell phone is ineffective with out tapping the performance of a downloaded app. Folks use embedded, out of the field smartphone capabilities greater than you assume. The aim of embedded techniques is to manage a particular perform inside a tool. They’re often designed to solely carry out this perform repeatedly, however extra developed embedded techniques can management whole working techniques. For example, house home equipment, smartphones, the heating and safety techniques that function with out interference in our houses; all of those use some kind of embedded system expertise to perform.

Earlier than the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, the method of navigating day by day life concerned quite a lot of digital and analog processes. There was e-mail, web sites, cellphone calls, faxes, printers, texting, and so forth. It was all cool. However it was nonetheless form of laborious. 

Within the 15 years since that revolutionary Macworld unveiling, the smartphone advanced from a slick gadget loaded with potential to a tool that most individuals can not reside with out. Over 85% of adults now personal a smartphone, and there are few stuff you can’t do from the palm of your hand.

The overwhelming majority of cell apps are rotting on the App Retailer digital cabinets  

The laborious a part of arming each client with an costly, highly effective, totally related minicomputer has largely been completed. Not surprisingly, the software program marketplace for smartphones has change into large and saturated. 

In 2020, shoppers downloaded over 200 billion cell apps from a pool of greater than 5 million choices. Whereas some are nice, most are usually not. One analysis research discovered {that a} whopping 89% of smartphone customers’ time is spent on common of any variety of combos of 18 apps. That’s an engagement price of .00036%! 

For the healthcare business, the place all people is a “buyer” sooner or later, a digital engagement technique constructed round smartphones ought to be an unimaginable alternative to ship on the promise of a consumer-like expertise – one which’s on par with different industries to enhance affected person engagement, shut care gaps and enhance outcomes.

It prices $425,000 on common to develop and launch a cell well being app. There are actually greater than 300,000 estimated healthcare apps, but affected person adoption stays unacceptably low.

Digital Care Exploded. Cell App Engagement Didn’t.

When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, it created an ideal storm second to drive huge affected person adoption of cell apps. In accordance with McKinsey, in 2021, digital care (telehealth visits) charges stabilized at ranges 38x larger than pre-pandemic ranges. Many thought the digital care push would change into the springboard to drive the plenty to start out utilizing all the apps that had been constructed to help sufferers.  Did the needle lastly transfer? Analysis reveals it moved a bit of – properly, form of.

In December 2021, Lifelink Techniques’ did a client ballot to get a way of how sufferers had been utilizing healthcare cell apps. Greater than a 3rd, 36%, of respondents mentioned they used a cell app prior to now yr, which is an uptick from previous utilization. The information additionally means that these app encounters had been episodic occasions. Of those that did lately use a healthcare cell app, solely 20% (or 7% of all respondents) say they use it repeatedly. In different phrases, sufferers are nonetheless not actively, repeatedly engaged with healthcare suppliers by means of their smartphones. 

Healthcare cell apps don’t undergo from a scarcity of performance. Lots of them have advanced into highly effective software program instruments. The issue is that designers have underestimated what sufferers are prepared to place up with to make use of cell apps. Friction is a giant drawback. 

The important thing problem to driving sufferers’ adoption of expertise has lengthy been the mix of complexity, laws, safety, and paperwork. The query the healthcare business must ask itself is that if cell apps are a viable long-term technique to interact sufferers. If 85% of them personal a smartphone, what’s going to it take to get 75% of them to make use of the gadget to e book appointments, alternate info, and repeatedly work together? Is it a greater app? Does it even should be an app in any respect?

Key innovation: Conversational AI because the Person Interface

Smartphones are right here to remain. And they’re going to proceed to quickly evolve and get much more highly effective. Why not simply benefit from the native capabilities that come pre-installed with each buy? Is it actually even essential so as to add an app to the combination anymore?

Internet browsers, SMS-messaging, the digicam, maps, digital wallets, face ID, voice recognition are all there, pre- “loaded”, as we speak. Completely different combos of those options may be the way forward for cell affected person engagement. Apps could bundle performance in useful methods. But when that comes on the expense of friction and resultant rejection by most shoppers, perhaps the time has come to faucet the uncooked energy of the smartphone.

The important thing innovation to maximizing these “built-in” capabilities is conversational AI, the place interactive messaging takes the place of downloads, passwords, menu bushes and complexity. Easy, sensible messaging delivered by means of SMS and Internet browswers turns into the person interface. The opposite cellphone capabilities are tapped as wanted. 

For instance, think about a affected person has an upcoming appointment. They get an SMS message saying they’ve an appointment. They click on on the hyperlink, which opens a safe, HIPAA-compliant browser to authenticate the person and stroll them by means of the consumption course of. They will entry their insurance coverage card of their digital pockets resolution or take an image of it. Logistics to the appointment are supported with maps and transportation instruments. The cellphone takes on the function of a digital assistant and handles all the pre-visit administrative course of. 

After the appointment, the identical gadget helps with a prescription. It can also remind, test in and far more. And importantly it might do all of this 100,000 occasions an hour, in any language, throughout giant affected person populations. 

Normally, essentially the most superior expertise on the planet is taken as a right as a result of it blends simplicity with satisfaction. The phone dial tone reliability did it for the analog era. Google did it for the web era. And the smartphone is advancing to a spot the place cell apps could undergo the identical destiny as software program that was as soon as offered CDs.

The Smartphone is an amazingly highly effective machine. Let’s put it to work.